John was the son of Pastor Erik Johan Dillner in Selangor. Dillner läste teologi vid Uppsala universitet, doktorerade och prästvigdes 1809, och förordnades samma år till adjunkt vid Finska församlingen i Stockholm. Dillner studied theology at Uppsala University, a PhD and was ordained in 1809, and ordained the same year the lecturer at the Finnish Church in Stockholm. 1810 utnämndes han till eo hovpredikant och blev 1814 regementspastor vid Jämtlands regemente under fälttåget mot Norge. 1810 he was appointed court preacher and became eo 1814 regimental pastes in Jämtland regiment during the campaign against Norway. Som kyrkoherde tjänstgjorde han i Östra Ryd församling från 1820, i Fundbo fg från 1831 och slutligen i Östervåla fg från 1839, alla i Uppland. As a pastor, he served in East Ryd parish from 1820, in Fundbo fg from 1831 and finally in Östervåla fg from 1839, all in Upland. Från 1842 var han vice kontraktsprost. From 1842 he was deputy kontraktsprost. 1860 utnämndes han till jubeldoktor vid Uppsala universitet. 1860 he was appointed Jubilee PhD at Uppsala University. Dillner var gift med Johanna Lovisa Lidström . Dillner was married to Johanna Louisa Lidstrom.

Linked to the bio is an article on the psalmodikon, translated as follows:

A simple musical instrument consisting of a ring box (often a simple, rectangular wooden box), a string and a fret board with tape (bumps). Det spelas med knäppning, plektrum eller stråke. It is played with buttons, plectrum or bow. Det anses uppfunnet av kyrkoherden Johan Dillner i Östervåla 1829 men bygger på den mycket gamla instrumenttypen monokord , en enkel resonanslåda med en sträng som kan förkortas med ett rörligt stall. It is invented by Pastor John Dillner Östervåla in 1829 but based on the ancient instrument type monokord, a simple sounding board with a string that can be shortened by a movable bridge. Dillner försåg sitt instrument med ett fast stall, som håller upp strängen från lådan, och en greppbräda med band , en trälist med utskärningar så att åsar bildas vilka bestämmer strängens fria längd när man trycker den mot en ås. Dillner provided his instrument with a fixed bridge, which keeps the string from the box, and a fretboard with tape, a strip of wood with cutouts so that the ridges are formed which determines the string free length when pressed it against a ridge. Det fanns 32 band med en halvton mellan. There were 32 bands with a semitone between. (jfr gitarrens greppbräda) och varje band är märkt med ett nummer. (Cf. guitar fretboard) and each band is marked with a number.

Användning Use Dillners avsikt med lanseringen av instrumentet var att förbättra psalmsången genom att kunna beledsaga sången med ett instrument som alla församlingar kunde ha råd att införskaffa - orglar var ju ofta alltför dyra. Dillner's intention with the launch of the instrument was to improve hymn singing by being able to accompany the song with an instrument that all churches could afford to purchase - organs was often too expensive. Dillner reste runt i Sverige för att demonstrera instrumentet och gav 1830 ut skriften Melodierna till svenska kyrkans psalmer där psalmerna i 1819 års psalmbok försetts med en enkel siffernotering till ledning för hur melodin skulle spelas på hans psalmodikon - helt enkelt numret på det band i greppbrädan som åstadkommer rätt ton. Dillner traveled around Sweden to demonstrate the instrument and gave 1830 the signature melodies to the Swedish church hymns in which the hymns of 1819 years of prayer book provided with a simple numerical listing for the guidance of the melody was played on his psalmodikon - simply the number of the bands in the fretboard that achieves the right tone. Dillner lär ha sagt att han kunde lära en person utan musikalisk förkunskap att spela psalmodikon på ett par timmar. Dillner reported to have said that he could teach a person without musical prerequisites to play psalmodikon in a few hours.

Instrumentet blev mycket populärt under 1800-talets mitt, både i mindre församlingar och bland kringresande väckelsepredikanter. The instrument became very popular during the mid-1800s, both in smaller congregations and among itinerant revivalists. Ett stort antal koralböcker publicerades med musiken noterade i sifferskrift, anpassade för utförande på psalmodikon. A large number of choral books were published with the music listed in numerical script, adapted for execution on psalmodikon. Flera utgåvor omfattar hela 1820 års koralbok i siffernotering. Several editions covering the entire 1820 year koralbok in the numerical listing.

Several books and manuscripts are listed, published mostly in Stockholm and Gefle between 1830 and 1848 ...

Also a link to Sven H. Gullman: psalmodikon was musikintrumentet in many churches and schools , article in Lysekil Post, 2002

Link here for Google translation ... Psalmodikon was musikintrumentet in many churches and schools Infört under juli 2002 i Lysekilsposten och Stenungsunds-Posten med Orust-Tjörn/Introduced in July 2002 in Lysekil Post and Stenungsunds-Posten with Orust-Tjörn

Dean Dillner knew of a simple close instrument that was cheap to buy and that would fit both in church and school. Han kallade det psalmodikon. He called it psalmodikon. Det var som instrument en förbättring av monokorden (av grek monos, ensam, och chorde, sträng). It was as instruments improving monokorden (from the Greek monos, alone, and chords, string). Detta bestod av en resonanslåda och på den spänd en tarmsträng, som genom ett flyttbart stall bestämde tonhöjden. This consisted of a sounding board and on the tense a gut string, which through a mobile team decided the pitch. Monokorden, ett slags cittra, hade introducerats i Köpenhamn 1823 i syfte att förbättra sången i skolorna. Monokorden, a kind of zither, was introduced in Copenhagen in 1823 in order to improve the singing in schools. Men instrumentet blev snart populärt också i kyrkliga kretsar. But the instrument soon became popular also in ecclesiastical circles. Dillner tog upp idén som snabbt slog igenom i Sverige. Dillner took up the idea that quickly became popular in Sweden. Med små förändringar kallades instrumentet psalmodikon, ett ord som i dagligt tal också ofta ersattes med notstock, notlåda eller psalmlåda. With small changes called instrument psalmodikon, a word in everyday speech often replaced with notstock, cowhide or hymn box. Det var fortfarande en rektangulär låda som spelades med stråke. It was still a rectangular box that was played with a bow. Strängen kunde vara av metall eller gjord av en tarm. The string could be metallic or made ​​of a gut. Som greppbräda tjänade en smal trälist, fastlimmad på lockets mitt. As fretboard earned a narrow strip of wood, glued to the lid in the middle. Den indelades i ca 30 halvtonsteg genom trappstegsformade nedskärningar. It was divided into about 30 halvtonsteg through step-cuts. Dessa var numrerade med siffror. These were numbered with numbers. ...

Also this, on the music:

From about 1870 began psalmodikon gradually being replaced by the harmonium, but came to be used at a few places for our time. Det finns säkert äldre läsare av denna tidning som själva minns att det användes i skolan. There are certainly older readers of this magazine itself remembers that it was used in the school. Men finns det belägg för att det kom att brukas vid gudstjänster i kyrkan? But there is evidence that it came to be used during services at church? Trots allt var det ett stränginstrument och vi förknippar kyrkorummet med orgelmusik. After all, it was a stringed instrument, and we associate the church with organ music.

Jodå. Oh yes. Johan Dillner skriver själv: John Dillner writes:

" I kyrkan bör sången gå något långsammare, i skolan eller hemma något mindre långsamt." "The church should be the song to go slightly slower, at school or at home slightly less slow."

Enligt Dillner fick ett psalmodikon en allt behagligare ton, ju längre och mer det nyttjades, och lät, när det var uppspelat, som en god altfiol. According to Dillner got a psalmodikon an ever more pleasing tone, the longer and more the use, and sounded, when there was a break out, like a good viola. Konsten att spela instrumentet var enligt honom lätt och snart lärt. The art of playing the instrument was, according to him easily and quickly learned. På mindre än en halvtimme garanterade han att alla skulle kunna spela vilken psalm som helst. In less than half an hour he guaranteed that everyone could play the hymn at any time. Varför inte låta detta instrument få en ny renässans! Why not let the instrument get a new renaissance! Men tillverkas det i den ursprungliga utförandet? But it made ​​in the original design?

Följande fyra psalmverser ur hans bok är hämtat från 1819 års psalmbok men fortfarande välkända för många. Four hymns from his book is taken from 1819 year book of hymns, but still familiar to many. Siffrorna framför varje ord har sin motsvarighet i instrumentets trälist, där varje skåra har motsvarande nummer. The numbers above each word has its counterpart in the instrument's wooden strip, where each slot has a corresponding number.

It is followed by four hymns in sifferskrift, Nos. 204 and 74 (with parts of 205 and 75 at the bottom of the respective pages).

In its earliest form the psalmodikon consisted of a flat, rather shallow soundbox, in plan a tall trapezium (or occasionally a rectangle), with a single (bowed) string of gut supported by a nut at each end and passing over a bridge. Beneath and parallel to this string was a strip or ‘rule’ of wood transversely ridged to form frets, with the stopping positions marked by letters (see illustration). Thus the player could follow a printed cue-sheet instead of formal music notation. There were also a number of wire drone strings which passed over sections of the bridge that were cut lower so as not to impede free bowing. In some early instruments further clearance was provided by cutting the soundboard away in a concave ‘bout’ on the near side of the bridge. Additionally the more sophisticated examples were provided with several alternative rules differently marked so that the instrument could be played in several keys.

The presence of a bowed string associated with a fretted and lettered fingerboard recalls John Playford´s 17th-century Psalterer (though there is no evidence that either Dillner or Roverud had any knowledge of Playford’s work). Both instruments were designed expressly to support choral singing in lieu of an organ or other skilled instrumental accompaniment.

Psalmodikon. The psalmodikon enjoyed great popularity in Norwegian and particularly Swedish schools until about 1860; it was also used by Scandinavian immigrants, for instance in the USA, where it is reported until about 1900. It appeared in a number of different versions, some with as many as four bowed strings, and with a variable number of drones. Such instruments were professionally made, but certain museum collections have examples of rustic copies of varying sophistication. Probably the most singular of these is one colloquially called notstok, in which the body was boat-shaped (sometimes not even hollowed out) while the fingerboard resembled a long handle passing through it. A keyed psalmodikon was also known at one time: all forms of the instrument, however, except perhaps the rural ones, seem to have gone out of use with the introduction of the harmonium in Scandinavian schools.

Monday, January 30, 2012

UPDATE: The Smithsonian Institution published a 16-page "Shape-Note Singing Lesson" in October 2000 as part of the Smithsonian in Your Classroom series. It is available on line as a PDF file. Designed for use by elementary school teachers and incorporating learning standards for grades 3-8, it is also entirely suitable for adults who want to learn the music.

At this month's workshop on music appropriate to our period at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, we'll take up two songs - both in Ionian or DAA tuning - and learn a little bit about the way people in New Salem would have sung religious music.

The first song is The Devil's Nine Questions. You can hear it on YouTube, in an audio file with still pictures, as performed on "American Songs of Revolutionary Times & the Civil War Era" - an LP featuring songs by Jean Ritchie and Paul Clayton, and storytelling by folklorist Richard Chase. There are several video clips of a slightly different version (which matches the one in Ralph Lee Smith's "Tunes and Tales of the Wilderness Road," by the way, for those of you who have Ralph's book.

Most of the songs that we know were sung at New Salem, or west central Illinois, during our period are religious. And many of them are in The Online Southern Harmony - it's an 1835 shape-note hymn book (updated in 1853 and republished in facsimile several years ago by the University Press of Kentucky) and a wonderful source of music from our period, in the Online Southern Harmony on the Christian Classics Ethereal Library website. I'll link you to a directory of songs in the Southern Harmony, with links below to a recording of some of the more popular pieces at the "Big Singing" several years ago in Benton, Ky. The CCEL website also has the introduction to the UK edition by Harry Eskew, a scholar on shape-note hymnody who comes to it from the perspective of singing in the tradition.

Songs in Southern Harmony with specific ties to New Salem, camp meetings and churches in Menard County, Abraham Lincoln's family, the Rev. Peter Cartwright and/or singing schools in the Sangamon River country include Old Hundred (22t), Idumea (32t), The Promised Land (51), Green Fields (71), Legacy (73), Pisgah (80), Romish Lady (82), The Saint's Delight (104), Hail Columbia (141), Bound for Canaan (193t), The Morning Trumpet (195t), The Saints Bound for Heaven (258), Plenary (262), Hebrew Children (266) and Coronation (299). I'll bring copies of Old Hundred with the words to Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" that I made for the Fourth of July at New Salem a couple of years ago. It's the poem we all memorized in junior high school that begins "By the rude bridge that arched the flood, / Their flag of April's breeze unfurled," and Emerson wrote it for the dedication of a monment to the Battle of Concord in 1836. So it fits our period.

Reading shape notes couldn't be any easier. Here are the shapes (reproduced with permission of Ottawa Shape Note Chorus) at http://ottawashapenote.org/

And here are the corresponding positions on the fretboard. "Fa" (the tonic) is on the third fret

Southern Harmony also has the original version of New Britain, or "Amazing Grace" ... audio and video clips of several versions are linked or embedded below. In recent years, "Amazing Grace" has suffered from any number of sweetened-up, New Age-y arrangements, and the melody has lost some of its original character from the Anglo-Celtic oral tradition.

But in the 1960s Mrs. Edd Presnell played "Amazing Grace" the old way on one of her husband's dulcimers for an LP called Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians. Her version of the melody is the same as in Southern Harmony, and she plays the dulcimer as it used to be played before the folk revival. The CD is a classic recording, collected in North Carolina and Virginia, and it's available for download at Amazon.com. There are 30-second audio clips, but you may want to get the whole album. It has fiddle, guitar and banjo versions of a lot of the songs we can play at New Salem, like "Cripple Creek," "Soldier's Joy," "Pretty Polly" and "Sourwood Mountain," including Nettie Presnell's dulcimer versions of "Shady Grove" and "Sally Goodin," both of which also fit our period at New Salem.

A shape-note version of Amazing Grace" (New Britain) at a traditional Sacred Harp singing convention in Holly Springs, Ga., in 1982. Notice how they sing the fa-sol-la shapes before moving on to the lyrics.

Lining out is a very old tradition in singing religious music. It dates back to the 1640s in England, when hymnals were scarce, and it was just about universal during the 1830s. (See below for details on Rock Creek campground.) The video clip embedded here is from a recent Primitive Baptist church meeting in Kentucky. The hand-shaking is a ritual at the close of worship services sometimes known as extending the "right hand of fellowship." Primitive Baptists, who choose that name because they wish to recreate the spirit of the primitive Christian church of the first century, are deeply conservative; often they cherish "lining out" as part of their unique religious heritage, even if it's not practiced now as much as it used to be. So lined-out hymnody continues to be a living spiritual tradition. When I demonstrate it in talks and performances at living history sites, I always try to keep that in mind.

The singing in religious services at New Salem would have sounded a lot like that in the YouTube clip. Writing in the 1920s, old settler Alice Keach Bone described the singing at Rock Creek campground like this:

Prominent among the preachers on the platform was Rev. JohnM. Berry. He would give out the hymn, read it, line it, and, ina strong voice, lead the singing himself, the people joining inone after another.

'On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,' and 'How firm a foundation,ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellentword' were favorites. These were frequently followed by

'There is a fountain filled with bloodDrawn from Emmanuel's veins;And sinners plunged beneath that floodLose all their guilty stains.'

Then came an earnest, heartfelt prayer and, sometimes, anothersong. After this he announced the text and began to preach. Hedid not time his sermons, neither did the people turn uneasy glancestoward their camps. (Bone 31-32)

When Rev. Berry (whose son was Abraham Lincoln's parnter in what we call the Berry-Lincoln stores) "lined" the hymn, he would have chanted in the same manner as a Primitive Baptist elder in our day. There's more about Rock Creek, Rev. Berry and lined-out hymn singing in my paper on the subject, "American Folk Hymnody in Illinois, 1800-1850." While my focus was wider, the paper relies heavily on county histories and other old settlers' accounts from the vicinity of New Salem and Menard County. There's an exhaustive (exhausting?) discussion of the background of lined-out hymnody, too, and a list of 109 works cited in the bibliography.

Friday, January 27, 2012

According to Wikipedia, "Drømde mig en drøm i nat is the oldest known secular song in the Nordic countries, written around 1300. It is written in Old Danish and is included in Codex Runicus, a transcript of Scanian Law where it forms a final note. Like the law itself, it is written in runes, and the tune is written on two simple staves in an early form of musical notation."

Krauka and Kari Tauring - Kari Tauring and Drew Miller join Krauka to play the song Drømte. Tauring is from Minneapolis, webpage at http://karitauring.com/about.html. It looks like Miller (?), at far right, is playing an Appalachian dulcimer in this performance.

Skyn, Wynde and Wyre [of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Hershey, Pa.] performs at the Vinland Games in the Shire-Marche of Blak Rose on May 8, A.S. XLV (2010 A.D.) Skyn, Wynde and Wyre is an inter-shire music group in the south western corner of the Kingdom of the East. The original piece is monophonic. The arrangement is by Doña Sol la Cantor.

Nordisk harpetræf - pohjoismainen harpunsukuisten soittimien kokoontuminen - Nordic gathering of musicians who play harp, lyre, kantele, langeleik and related plucked string. ... The Nordic Harp Meeting is a gathering of musicians who play, build or simply like the harp, lyre, kantele and related instruments and who have a particular interest in music from the Nordic countries. We meet to get acquainted with each other, learn and teach tunes and play together. Everybody is welcome, no matter if you are advanced harper or beginner, professional musician or just curious! The purpose is to actively share our interests in plucked string instruments and music.

More details, and music on the "Allspiel" page; click on "Allspel" on left and page will launch ...

The "allspel" is literally translated as "all play": all participants are invited on the stage or in the central place to play some tunes together. The tunes are taken from the common repertoire and can be downloaded here. All tunes are traditional and in public domain.The allspel is usually led by somebody who knows the tune and makes sure that everybody starts in the same key and at the same time. For example, Maja Lillian Marcussen from Norway might lead the historical tunes Drømte mig en drøm (Denmark), Völuspá tune (Iceland) and Olav's sequence [music for all three].

Music from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.

The 2011 programme has more information. There is also a year-long aevents schedule currently updated through the fall of 2011. The group has had meetings in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark so far. Nothing posted yet for 2012.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

By op-ed columnist Joe Nocera on the Times' website today, a good brief summary of different productions and changing racial attitudes of the years, which have been quite conflicted.

Including this, quoting Jack O’Brien, director of the Houston Grand Opera revival of the original uncut opera version of Porgy and Bess in 1976:

After its 1976 run in Houston, the opera played in Washington, on its way to New York. Todd Duncan, Gershwin’s original Porgy, saw it there. Forty years earlier, Mr. Duncan had refused to sing “Porgy and Bess” in Washington unless the theater where it was being performed was desegregated. (It was, but only temporarily.) When he went backstage to shake the latest Porgy’s hand, he could only marvel at what he had seen. “It’s so black!” he told Mr. [Donnie Ray] Albert [who played Porgy in the Houston production].

Mr. O’Brien says that he doesn’t think of “Porgy and Bess” as African-American music. “It’s American music,” he said — and really, who can disagree? The blues and spirituals that make up the core of “Porgy and Bess,” written by a white Jewish composer and originating in the African-American community, is music we all embrace. It is part of America’s heritage and a source of American pride. It is unlikely that will ever change, for which we should be thankful.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Dan Lundberg, Director of Svenskt visarkiv (Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research) and a professor in music and cultural diversity, in "Swedish folk Music - from village greens to concert platforms" on the Svenskt visarkiv website at http://www.visarkiv.se/online/swedish_folkmusic.htm:

Festivalisation, concerts and medialisation are all parts of a process where the boundaries between musical genres and categories of musicians become harder and harder to distinguish. Maybe in the not too distant future we will be forced to discard the labels “folk music” and “popular music”, which are already problematical. When what we today call folk music focuses less and less on reproduction and more and more on innovation, then it would seem that we have returned to the order which existed before the term folk music was first introduced at the end of the eighteenth century. Perhaps it is time to dispense with Johann Gottfried von Herder’s prefix folk and simply talk about music.

Gärdebylåten med Flemming FiolSwedish tune played at a bar in Denmark. Posted by PikaBanditKat on YouTube: Fiol spiller på Kupeen i Nørre Åby [Nørre Aaby, a small town on Funen island in Denmark]. Flemming Fiol is stage name for Flemming Pedersen, a session player from Denmark. Description in Google translation

This background on the tune from Dan Lundberg's "Swedish folk Music - from village greens to concert platforms" on the Svenskt Arkiv website of Stockholm:

With the development of spelmanslag (fiddlers’ groups) during the 1940s, a new type of organised folk music emerged.

The most influential trend-setter was the Rättviks Spelmanslag whose signature tune, Gärdebylåten (The Gärdeby Tune) , became Sweden’s first folk music hit, thanks to the mass media. Through radio broadcasts and gramophone recordings Gärdebylåten became something of a national plague towards the end of the 1940s.

Marc Chemillier, "Jazz, Africa and creolization: about Herbie Hancock. Interview with French Jazzman Bernard Lubat." Full version in French published in Les Cahiers du jazz, n° 5, 2008, pp. 18-50 (Éditions Outre-Mesure). http://ehess.modelisationsavoirs.fr/lubat/creolisation/

The purpose of this article is to analyze examples of traditional African music and to discuss with jazz musician Bernard Lubat (pianist and drummer who played with Stan Getz) whether or not one could imagine a cross-fertilization of jazz with this music. We shall also analyze recordings by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock presenting various kinds of fusion music including recycling of traditional African repertoires and we shall study what kind of meeting of jazz and Africa is actually realized in these recordings. According to the aesthetic of Bernard Lubat, these different kinds of meetings will be critized in relation to the concept of "creolization" of poet and philosopher Edouard Glissant. Here are a few statements by Glissant about creolization (available online):

The Caribbean is the exemplary model of interbreeding: "Take the example of West Indian music in which new rhythms are being born of the interaction with Africa and the United States. We are at the present time witnessing the "archipelagoization" of the Caribbean, which is exemplary and is moving in the direction of creolization. But the entire world is being creolized today."

Creolization, which implies no domination, is the way to protect us from globalization: "Globalization is universality achieved through the lowest common denominator, through homogenization, through standardisation. It is the screen behind which new oppressions and dominations hide".

Creolization is related to the impossibility of predicting and governing the world: "We now have to get used to the idea that we can live in the world without having the ambition to predict it or dictate to it. We should also get accustomed to the idea that our identity is going to change profoundly on contact with the Other as his will on contact with us, without either of them losing their essential nature or being diluted in a multicultural magma. "

[A native of Martinique, Glissant is teaching French Literature at the City University of New-York]

“Creolization,” as the term is used by some anthropologists, is ananalogy taken from linguistics. This discipline in turn took the term froma particular aspect of colonialism, namely the uprooting and displacementof large numbers of people in colonial plantation economies. Both in theCaribbean basin and in the Indian Ocean, certain (or all) groups whocontributed to this economy during slavery were described as creoles.Originally, a criollo meant a Spaniard born in the New World (as opposedto peninsulares); today, a similar usage is current in La Réunion, whereeverybody born in the island, regardless of skin color, is seen as créole,as opposed to the zoréoles who were born in metropolitan France. InTrinidad, the term “creole” is sometimes used to designate all Trinidadiansexcept those of Asian origin. In Suriname, a creole is a person of Africanorigin, whereas in neighboring French Guyana a creole is someone whohas adopted a European way of life. In spite of the differences, there areresemblances between the conceptualizations of the creole. Creoles areuprooted, they belong to a New World, and are contrasted with thatwhich is old, deep, and rooted.

A question often posed by people unfamiliar with these variations is“What is really a Creole?” They may have encountered the term in connectionwith food or architecture from Louisiana, languages in the Caribbean,or people in the Indian Ocean. The standard response is that whereasvernacular uses of the term “creole” vary, there exist accurate definitionsof creole languages in linguistics and of cultural creolization in anthropology.There are nevertheless similarities, although there is no one-toonerelationship, between the ethnic groups described locally (emically)as creoles and the phenomena classified as creole or creolised in theacademic literature. ...

* * *

... The incorporation of Country & Western music into the standard cultural repertoire of rural southern Norway can accordingly be described as a process of creolization, just as the complex cultural dynamics, involving interaction among various groups of Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Native-Americans, leading to the emergence of a distinctive Caribbean cultural intersystem during and after slavery. ... (19)

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

KXMT public radio of Kodiak aired a 30-minute segment "Talk of the Rock: The Russian Church in Alaska" hosted Jan. 3 by Jennifer Canfield of KMXT. "On today's show we'll be discussing Russian Christmas and New Year, the history of the church in Kodiak and what it means to be a part of the church. Our guests today are Father Paisius and Father Michael from St. Innocent's, Katie Oliver from the Baranov Museum and Sven Haakanson from the Alutiiq Museum." Singers from St. Innocent's Academy and Saint Herman Seminary singers at 21:15. Yup'ik troparion and carolers' songs. "Skania" (phon.) at 25:10.

Monday, January 02, 2012

According to a story on the Guardian.co.uk website today, a double--blind study indicates that musicians prefer modern violins to 17th-century instruments valued at more than a million dollars. While the sample is small, the study appeared in a reputable journal, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and it replicates other studies.

Ian Sample of The Guardian sums up the study like this:

... it appears that concert violinists cannot tell from the sound alone whether they are playing a 300-year-old Stradivarius or an instrument made last week. And, for playing quality alone, the virtuoso will opt for the modern one when asked which fiddle they would like to take home.

These discordant findings emerge from experiments by Claudia Fritz, a researcher at the University of Paris, at an international violin competition in Indianapolis in 2010. She asked 21 musicians to play six different violins, three modern instruments and three by Italian maestros – one made by Guarneri del Gesu around 1740, and two made in Antonio Stradivari's workshop around 1700.

The Guardian also contacted a luthier, who said the study confirms other findings:

Kai-Thomas Roth, secretary of the British Violin Making Association, said that double blind tests, where neither experimenter nor musician knows which violin is played, had already shown people cannot distinguish a modern violin from a priceless work of art.

"There's some myth-making that helps old instruments," Thomas said. "If you give someone a Stradivari and it doesn't work for them, they'll blame themselves and work hard at it until it works.

"Give them a modern violin, and they'll dismiss the instrument straight away if it doesn't work for them. That's the psychology at work. Modern violins are easily as good, but even a good maker can make an instrument that doesn't work out."

An amateur musician and historical interpreter of Springfield will present a talk on "Roads and Rivers: Minstrels, Waggoners and the Music of the Old Northwest" at a meeting of the Sangamon County Historical Society at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Jan. 17, at Lincoln Library, Carnegie Room North. A volunteer interpreter at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site and guide at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, Pete Ellertsen will will share 19th-century tunes and accompany himself on the Appalachian dulcimer.

As soon as the first (and last) steamboat made it up the Sangamon River to Springfield in 1832, it was greeted by a parody of a newly popular minstrel show tune. American popular music, like almost everything else in the popular culture of the day, followed the roads and rivers. Ellertsen is author of "'Clar de Steamboat': A Minstrel Show Tune, Springfield's Small-Beer Poets and the Voyage of the Talisman" and other articles on music history in Illinois Heritage and other magazines. He is an adjunct instructor at Benedictine University Springfield.

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Thursday night, Jan. 5Next week, we'll take up "Bonaparte's Retreat" at our Clayville Academy of Music jam (Jan. 3) and our first 2015 session of the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings (Jan. 6). It's one of the grand old fiddle tunes, and it turns up everywhere. You can recognize it in a old gutbucket country-and-western song, a classical orchestra piece and - most important of all for our purposes - a good, rowdy dulcimer jam tune.

But unlike most of the old fiddle tunes, it's not basically a dance tune. Old-time fiddlers would use it to show off their skills - kind of like "Orange Blossom Special" today - and they'd adapt it freely. It's become more standardized in recent years (hasn't everything), and the festival version we usually hear sounds a lot like the country song.

But there are still a lot of variations.

"Bonaparte's Retreat" began as a march. Here, to set the mood, is a version featuring Scottish fiddler Aly Bain, Nashville dobro player Jerry Douglas and several equally talented musicians from the U.K., Ireland and North America.

The YouTube clip isn't identified, but judging by the personnel and production quality, I'd guess it came from a BBC television series called the "Transatlantic Sessions." Personnel:

Aly Bain - Fiddle

Jerry Douglas - Dobro

Danny Thompson - Bass

Tommy Hayes - Percussion

Michael Doucet - Fiddle

Russ barenberg - Guitar

Donald Shaw - piano

More inspiration. Dulcimer and vocal artists Richard and Mimi Farina included "Bonaparte's Retreat" on a medley they titled "Celebration for a Grey Day" that was kind of an anthem for dulcimer players when the instrument was coming down out of the mountains in the 1960s and '70s. I've identified "Frere Jaques," "Old Joe Clark," "Spin and Turn, Jubilee," "Good King Wenceslas," "Yonder Comes Little Maggie" and "Boil 'Em Cabbage Down." The quotations from "Bonaparte's Retreat" begin around 1:08.

What we're used to hearing is actually an old country-and-western song about an even older fiddle tune. Here's a 1953 version featuring Archie Campbell, probably broadcast on WROL-TV in Knoxville, Tenn. It's in three parts, corresponding to the A, B and C parts of the fiddle tune.

The lyrics are by Pee Wee King, who recorded it in the 1940s. They're available - with chords in D, no less! - on the CowboyLyrics.com website. The first verse, beginning "Met the girl I love / In a town 'way down in Dixie ...," corresponds to the A part of the fiddle tune. The chorus, beginning, "So I took her in my arms ...," corresponds to the B part. And the second verse, beginning "All the world was bright ...," corresponds to the C part.

As we'll see, the C&W song simplifies the old fiddle tune considerably. But it's reflected in the way most of us have played it ever since the 1940s. And the way it's gotten into the dulcimer world, too.

Another dulcimer version on YouTube. YouTube user dustyturtle says, "It is based mainly on the guitar/slide guitar rendition by Doc and Merle Watson (which is why the 'B' part is central) and an older rendition by [traditional old-time artist] Johnny Gimble on the fiddle."

Well, the B part is central for another reason, too.

"Bonaparte's Retreat" was one of those tunes that traditional fiddle players would try to dazzle the judges at old-time music competitions. It's a type of program music, like the 19th-century crowd-pleasers that mimicked a fire or a shipwreck or - best of all! - both a fire and a shipwreck. It mimicks, well, the Napoleonic wars. The way I've heard it explained, the high course or A part - the part that begins with "Met the girl I love," - is a battle and the low course or B part - "So I took her in my arms" and so on - is the long, long route march of a Napoleonic army in between battles.

At least that's the story. Apparently, the old-timers would lay on all kinds of fancy ornamentation and pizzicato effects during the battle. Then they go back to a soulful, mellow, hard-driving drone during the B part. (Yep, soulful and hard-driving at the same time. That's the artistry of old-time Appalachian music.)

They'd play the whole thing in an open D tuning, too, and double-stop it - play two strings at once - to bring out the drones and give them that rich, mellow, lonesome sound that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

"Bonaparte's Retreat" is an old Irish march, and there's lots more to know about it. Andrew Kuntz' Fiddler's Companion has too much information to copy all of it here, and it's too good to ignore. So go to http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BOH_BONIN.htm and scroll down for the rest of the story. I'll just bring out a couple of things here that might be helpful to dulcimer players who want to earn the song. Kuntz has this:

BONAPARTE'S RETREAT [1]. AKA – “Napoleon’s Retreat.” Old‑Time, Texas Style; March, Reel. USA; Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Kentucky, northeast Alabama, Mississippi, southwestern Va., West Virginia, Pennsylvania. D Major (most versions, though one version in A Major was collected from Mississippi fiddler John Hatcher in 1939). DDad (W.H. Stepp, Absie Morrison), EBee (Henry Reed), or DDae tunings. ABB: ABB’CC’BB’ (Beisswenger & McCann). A classic old‑time quasi-programmatic American fiddle piece that is generally played in a slow march tempo at the beginning and becomes increasingly more quick by the end of the tune, meant to denote a retreating army. Versions very widely from region to region, some binary and some with multiple parts. One folklore anecdote regarding this melody has it that the original "Bonaparte's Retreat" was improvised on the bagpipe by a member of a Scots regiment that fought at Waterloo, in remembrance of the occasion. The American collector Ira Ford (1940) (who seemed to manufacture his notions of tune origins from fancy and supposition, or else elaborately embellished snatches of tune-lore) declared the melody to be an "old American traditional novelty, which had its origin after the Napoleonic Wars." He notes that some fiddlers (whom he presumably witnessed) produced effects in performance by drumming the strings with the back of the bow and "other manipulations simulating musket fire and the general din of combat. Pizzicato represents the boom of the cannon, while the movement beginning with Allegro is played with a continuous bow, to imitate bagpipes or fife." The programmatic associations of many older fiddlers are also wide-spread. Arkansas fiddler Absie Morrison (1876-1964) maintained the melody had French and bagpipe connotations (as told to Judith McCulloh—see “Uncle Absie Morrison’s Historical Tunes”, Mid-America Folklore 3, Winter 1975, pgs. 95-104)…”Now that’s bagpipe music on the fiddle…That was when (Bonaparte) had to give back, had to give up the battle…This in what’s called minor key, now … It’s French music.”

And this story from Kentucky (following a story of a Civil War execution of bushwhackers by Confederate Home Guard in the mountains of western North Carolina). The Kentucky story, along with the tune's widespread in Irish oral tradition, puts it squarely in our period at New Salem, by the way. Here are the details:

The Kentucky Encyclopedia gives another story which mentions “Bonaparte’s Retreat” in connection with an execution. It seems that a Colonel Solomon P. Sharp, a former attorney general of Kentucky, was murdered in the middle of a September night in 1825 by an unidentified assailant who stabbed him in his chest. Sharp had political enemies, all of whom had alibis, but who had circulated rumors that he had seduced one Ann Cook of Bowling Green, fathering her illegitimate child in 1820. Suspicion soon shifted to Ann’s husband, Jereboam Beauchamp, who married her after the birth of the supposed love-child but who was infuriated at the circulating handbills containing the rumor. Beauchamp was dully arrested, tried in Frankfort in May, 1826, found guilty and was sentenced to death by hanging. Ann could not bear to be parted from him and somehow gained permission from the jailer to stay with him in his jail cell. The couple tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum, but were still permitted to share the cell. Another suicide attempt with a smuggled knife was made on the day of the execution, with somewhat better results. Ann, mortally wounded, was taken to the jailers house for treatment, but Beauchamp was hustled to the gallows lest he die from his wounds before the sentence was carried out. He proved too weak from his wounds to stand and had to be supported, but he was presumably able to hear the strains of “Bonaparte’s Retreat” played before he made the leap, as he had previously requested. Ann and Jereboam were buried in a joint grave in Bloomfield, Kenctucky, graced by a tombstone engraved with an eight-stanza poem written by Ann.

Even before Pee Wee King and Archie Campbell got ahold of it, "Bonaparte's Retreat" turned up in a classical composition by Aaron Copland in an orchestral suite called Rodeo. Says Kuntz:

[A traditional] Kentucky fiddler, William H. Stepp (of Leakeville, Magoffin County, whose name, Kerry Blech points out, is sometimes erroneously given as W.M. Stepp, from a misreading of the old abbreviation Wm., for William), appears to be the source (through his 1937 Library of Congress field recording) for many revival fiddlers' versions. Stepp’s version of the tune was transcribed by Ruth Crawford Seegar and was included in John and Alan Lomax’s volume Our Singing Country (1941). The Crawford/Seegar version has been credited as the source Aaron Copland adapted for a main theme in his orchestral suite “Hoedown.” {Lynn “Chirps” Smith says he has even heard people refer to the tune as “Copland’s Fancy” in recent times!}. North Georgia fiddler A.A. Gray (1881-1939) won third place honors playing the tune at the 1920 (10th) Annual Georgia Old Time Fiddler's Association state contest in Atlanta, and four years later recorded it as a solo fiddle tune for OKeh Records (the earliest sound recording of the tune). Other early recordings were by Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers (1929) and the Arthur Smith Trio (1936).

There's also a very, very informative post by blogger "horus kemwer" on his blog Against the Modern Grain that embeds sound clips of different versions of the song from traditional fiddlers collected by the Library of Congress to 1970s rockers Emerson, Lake and Palmer. His discussion of the fiddle tune is intertwined with the Copland, but it is worth reading:

"As with all fiddle tunes, the essence of the piece is a loose melodic and rhythmic structure, in this case built around a central narrative metaphor," says horusa kemwer. The metaphor, he adds, is "a monotonous march punctuated by bursts of cannon, a trek, hastened and desperate, but also dignified and glorious."

OK, I'd only add monotonous is in the ear of the beholder.

At the top of his post, horus kemwer quotes a passage from Jeff Todd Titon, ethnomusicologist and author of Old Time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes (2001):

"Bonaparte's Retreat" is not a dance tune. Rather, it represents another fiddle tune genre, more poular on the concert stage than anywhere else: a programmatic piece meant to depict an event imitating the action in its sound. . . . Bayard (1944) traces the tune to an Irish march, "The Eagle's Charge," (also known as "The Eagle's Tune") and gives references to printed versions in Irish collections.

"Bonaparte's Retreat" is an instance of a genre which has largely died out at its origin, but which has remained trapped in Appalachia for a century. As with all fiddle tunes, the essence of the piece is a loose melodic and rhythmic structure, in this case built around a central narrative metaphor.

(I'm going to take a deep breath and pass over that "trapped in Appalachia" stereotype.) The narrative metaphor, of course, is the march followed by the pyrotechnics of battle. horus kemwer discusses and links to YouTube clips of three traditional versions, by William Stepp, Luther Strong and Tommy Jarrell, and Stepp's influence . He says:

Now, despite Titon's comments above, Stepp does indeed perform "Bonaparte's Retreat" in a break-down, or hoe-down style. Nevertheless, to use this particular melody as a representative instance of such a dance demonstrates a profound insensitivity to both the particulars of the style and of this tune.

More striking than this, however, is the fact that Copland's version mimics the melody and rhythm of Stepp's version so precisely. Comparing the two, we find a far stricter melodic and rhythmic similarity than exists between any two of the performances of Stepp, Strong, and [Tommy] Jarrell. In following Stepp's performance so precisely, in fact, Copland has lost the distinction between the tune (its melodic and thematic backbone) and the interpretation of it (the idiosyncrasies of different players which emphasize different strands in the melodic / thematic core).

The three fiddle versions each illustrate a monotonous march punctuated by bursts of cannon, a trek, hastened and desperate, but also dignified and glorious. Stepp's version is more glorious than the others, yet there is still a sense of monotonous march punctuated by desperation and excitement. Stepp layers a frantic and ecstatic veneer onto the incessant flight, the chaotic running, of the underlying melodic structure. Yet Copland, in lifting the literal melody from Stepp's performance, lifts this ecstatic veneer without the underlying desperation. The monotony and rhythm of the march is absent from "Hoe-Down" where the melody, Stepp's idiosyncratic frills and all, is put through the paces of orchestral variation. The lull and swell of dynamics and instrumentation here is not motivated by any particular thematic or aesthetic narrative, but rather exemplifies the standard moves of a large orchestral spectacle.

Recorded for the Library of Congress 1937, Stepp's is the version of the tune that Copland incorporated in the "Hoedown" section of Rodeo. For the sake of comparison, here's the Artosphere Festival Orchestra at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, Ark, playing it on May 17, 2011:

[p. 169 - cf. “the present abominable Sunday-school stuff, instead of the grand old hymns and the beautiful Old-Time White Camp Meeting Spirituals.” … fifty years ago, when I was a boy ten years old …]

There was no instrument, not even the tuning fork. Those old-timers held that the Devil came in with the organ and the choir, and God went out. Some brass-lunged relative of mine pitched the tune. If he pitched it in the skies, no matter. The men singing the leading part with him were as brass-lunged as he. As for the women, they placed an octave over the men’s leading part, singing around high C with perfect unconcern because they didn’t realize their feat. The immediate din was tremendous; at a hundred yards it was beautiful; and at a distance of a half mile it was magnificent. (170)

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About Me

I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.